My column of May 13th explored America’s love affair with trucks, a condition made evident by the top sales spot held by pickups. I suggested the motivation for truck ownership goes beyond utility, including undetermined factors. Whatever intangible cues may be in play, their mix…
Whether that yellow-orange light reads, “CHECK ENGINE,” or depicts a side-view image of an engine block, when it’s illuminated on your instrument panel, take note. The warning means your vehicle’s on-board computer has detected a fault in one of many engine control systems. That fault…
Mazda just spent eight years developing a fascinating technology you’ll never notice. Not much more than a few lines of computer code — Mazda calls it a “software control system” — the new G Vectoring Control (GVC) system exerts a powerful influence on a car’s...
Why drive a truck when you can drive a car? I’ve often pondered that query, especially since a pickup, the Ford F150, is America’s top selling vehicle. In fact, it’s been the best seller of all vehicles for over 30 years. Given the available vehicle…
We were young, underemployed and new parents. We’d survived a string of iffy used cars and needed to get serious about transportation. Under those conditions, my wife and i bought the least expensive car then available in America. It wasn’t fancy but it had a...
Good drivers constantly look for ways to assess and improve their driving. Lack of citations and crashes are noteworthy standards to seek, but one entity has identified a few other behaviors to monitor. The entity is EverDrive, a company offering a smartphone app that evaluates…
Automakers are so often punished for making bold moves it’s worth cheering their successes. By those lights, Kia’s Soul is a car to cheer. While its boxy, upright stance evokes both praise and ridicule, it also produces generous amounts of passenger and cargo space. There’s…
Evidently, there are drivers operating motor vehicles who lack the understanding to properly do so. Based on behaviors I observe, if it’s not incompetence, then it’s simply indifference to afford due diligence to the task. The only explanations for seemingly unexplainable driver actions are that…
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